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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,020
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
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Same comment as for the "theory" discussion
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Interested in the discussion but I don't have any relevant recent experience to add
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The worldbuilding kind of felt to me like the most extreme form of space opera - push the stakes up until maybe the entire universe is about to be destroyed. Except that it then back off and (I think - I was kind of skimming by this stage as it wasn…
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Second part... I don't think there's any substantive evidence that books are in long-term decline? There certainly was a short-term blip during and immediately after covid, but the regular emails I get from Nielsen Bookdata indicate that 2025 saw a …
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Two separate thoughts here, the first about the book itself. I thought that it was a potentially interesting idea, spoiled by the implementation. I didn't get on with the writing style at all, I'm afraid - I like writing to have more depth and style…
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All: at present we have @BarnerCobblewood 's starters for Antimemetics in a few days, then February's read is Nada the Lily chosen by @clash_bowley . The current sequence has: March @kcaryths April @Apocryphal May @NeilNjae * any thoughts for th…
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Sorry not to reply to this sooner - I've been buried in a lot of work to do with the business and haven;t had much time for other pursuits. And having just finished the Antimemetics collection I strongly suspect that related points might come up the…
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I finished it today
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For completeness here are the links that @NeilNjae provided in the Discord channel; epub mobi
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(Quote) Sounds interesting, I'd like to hear more in due course :)
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Just a quick reminder that January's read is Antimemetics Division Hub selected by @BarnerCobblewood - the website is https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub - other formats provided by @neilnjae epub kindle mobi Discussion on Ammon…
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(Quote) I can see where you're coming from but am not convinced, largely because I don't think I understand your magic vs science dichotomy. The development techniques in this book were, surely, eminently social rather than personal, in that people …
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(Quote) I really liked it :) Specifically, I found both setting and development compelling and liked the particular spin on human development, especially that it was biofeedback-based and not drug-induced. (To be fair to Frank Herbert, the narrativ…
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Probably worth recalling that Ammonite was Nicola Griffith's debut novel - what would we make of Frank Herbert's The Dragon in the Sea if we read that?
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(Quote) I'm reading Hild at the moment but it's very long (well over half as long again as Ammonite) so I am working my way through it in easy chunks along with other reads. HF rather than SFF and I am finding it a fairly convincing view of that era…
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Discussion starters for Ammonite now posted
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Slightly behind because of a family get-together but should be posted tomorrow
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Hi all, I know @kcaryths has finished - and of course it has been the holiday season - but how are folk getting on with Ammonite? I can post discussion starters this coming weekend or leave it a week?
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Hi all, looks like discussion about the Arthurian Romances is dying down, though there's still plenty of time to revitalise it! This is a quick reminder that December's read is Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, selected by me. Discussion to start early …
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(Quote) If you go back to the post-Roman pre Normal Conquest time frame then you have a similar sort of situation but not with words like "knight"... you had the king who may well only rule over a small area of land (maybe only the equival…
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(Quote) Yes, I read it while exploring new Kingdom Egyptian and archaic Hebrew poetry a few years ago. I don't think the key point is whether the singers were literate or not, but how they chose to narrate and pass on their traditions. Just like anc…
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(Quote) I wonder if de Troyes based his description of society on what was actually around him and his audience at the time, or on what people believed life had been like a while back? Again like Homer - it is widely believed that he (if you prefer,…
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I wonder whether this was intended purely as a written fiction, or whether there were sung/recited/declaimed variations at the same time. Can we imagine multiple slightly-divergent versions of the tales, with de Troyes selecting the material he part…
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(Quote) This is a common plot in older fiction (and probably based in fact to a degree at least) - the attendants, maids or whatever of elite women are typically wholly committed and faithful, leaving indiscretions and such like unreported to the ru…
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(Quote) Indeed this is a classic problem for a military ruler in peacetime - what to do with highly trained skilled and aggressive followers who have no "real" battles to fight. If you;re going to stop them just fighting each other or tryi…
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All: I have set up discussion areas for the next three months: December... me, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith January... @BarnerCobblewood, Antimimetics Division by various authors February... @clash_bowley, Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard
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(Quote) That puts it very well, I think. There were many perils in the ancient world, but by and large people reckoned they knew what the order of things ought to be, and how they fitted into it. But here, your place seems to depend totally on the w…
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I couldn't see an obvious place to comment on this, but it seemed to me that another narrative successor to this kind of tale would be the Western. Again you have clear demarcations between good guys and bad guys, and the imperative to keep persever…
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Not having played it, but I would expect that a player would be rewarded or penalised by the extent to which he or she fulfils things they have said (even casual things that were spoken in passing) and so would be constantly held accountable for the…
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I think it is a rational basis for morality... just a different one. It's not rule-based like a written constitution or the Ten Commandments or whatever, but rather an honour-based one resting heavily on loyalty to the king and adherence to one's ow…